Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Working ii-V7-I

Unfortunately, I didn't get the kind of jazz education I needed in high school. College got me going, but since jazz wasn't my major, I missed some of the nuts and bolts. Now that I'm teaching it everyday, I've been working my way through a number of different elements of jazz that I could hear, but not understand. One of those is the ii-V7-I progression, found everywhere in jazz. There are plenty of ways of working through the changes, and it happens in bars 9-11, and 11-12 in a blues progression (not the most basic blues, though). I've put on my site a couple play-a-longs over ii-V7-I that you could practice over. Find them at

Just start by playing the scales over them (concert G dorian, C Mixolydian, F Mixolydian) and then get creative, working from a chord tone of one to a chord tone of the next.... Post if you have a question or thought....